The AMUG 2016 Diamond Sponsor Panel Session

AMUG 2016 Diamond Sponsor Panel session

AMUG 2016 Diamond Sponsor Panel session

There can't be a more intimidating floor to face as a panel session participant than that of the AMUG especially when you're representing one of the industry's leading companies. AMUG is a place where hype goes to die, you're not going to get a good reaction from the baying audience if you talk in marketing lingo.

Representatives from 3D Systems, Carbon, Concept Laser, ExOne, GE HP, Renishaw, SLM Solutions, DSM Somos and Stratasys were asked a serious of tough questions from chair Todd Grimm, which they each handled remarkably well but it was the questions from the floor that really resulted in a proper grilling.

Questions from experienced users were mixed with demands for a more open-source approach to materials and cries for better training and education on the machinery. One such passionate plea came from an engineer at Caterpillar who said that the huge company would not budget for training each of their thousands of engineers to operate the additive manufacturing machinery. He believed that this lack of understanding was leading to a bottle neck in the adoption of the technology.

It was a thoroughly entertaining panel session in which most questions were answered honestly and frankly. We tweeted the whole event and have compiled all of it onto this page for you to read through: